2018 Maine Forest & Logging Museum, Inc. presents living history at Leonard’s Mills in Bradley, Maine 1 2018 Programs May 23-25 – Children’s Days 9 AM – 1 PM Historical hands-on activities and demonstrations, wagon rides, and fish swimming upstream! Reservations required $5 per person May 26 – Alewife Day 10 AM – 1 PM See the alewives swim upstream! Smoked fish, kid’s games, mills running, Machinery Hall open $3 per person ages 12+ June 16 – On the Run! Blackman Stream Alewife Cross Country Run 8:30 See website for race details June 16 – Lombard Log Hauler, Sawmills & More on the run! 10 AM – 4 PM $10 adults/$5 children under 12 July 28 – Heavy Metal 10 AM – 4 PM Heavy machinery and blacksmithing exhibits for the whole family! Try your hand at forging with a blacksmith. Bean hole beans, biscuits, sawmills, and Lombards Running! $10 adults/$5 children under 12 October 6 & 7 – Living History Days 10 AM – 4 PM Our most popular event of the season! Reenactors showcasing livestock, historic demonstrations. Fresh pressed cider, bean-hole beans & biscuits, and soup. Lombard and sawmills running! $10 adults/$5 children under 12 REGULAR EVENTS THURSDAYS IN THE WOODS Every Thursday from June through September, we open the museum buildings to visitors. Tour the buildings, take a walk in the woods, bring a lunch and eat at one of our picnic tables. Family events will be scheduled throughout the summer, be sure to check out our Facebook page for special event details. $3 per person ages 12+ SATURDAY AT THE MILLS Our special group of volunteers, the Tuesday Crew, will be on hand on some Saturdays to give special insights to our facilities. Learn more about the Lombards, our mills, blacksmithing, and the Grady Machine Shop. Visit our Facebook page for more details. Find us on Facebook or visit us on our website: www.maineforestandloggingmuseum.org (207) 974-6278 262 Government Road – 1.2 miles off Route 178 Bradley, ME 04411 2 MAINE FOREST & LOGGING MUSEUM Welcome from Sherry Board of Directors Dear Friends, Officers: How many of you have visited a museum and Herb Crosby wished you could pick up a chain saw and see how President heavy it is, marveling at the men who put in a Tim Beaulieu day’s work with them? We have many artifacts we Vice President Sean Hutchinson want to brush up and show visitors, and we need Treasurer more volunteers to help! If you are someone who Terri Coolong likes to work on buildings, refurbish old things or Secretary would like to come and be part of events showing how people lived and worked, come join us! Directors Byron Aubrey The bonus is that the museum grounds are Tim Beaulieu absolutely beautiful all year round. Until I started Ben Carlisle working for the museum, I just saw it during busy Terri Coolong events. Now I am there when the turtles lay eggs, Robert Chandler Herb Crosby the alewives come back, the cardinal flowers Lew Crosby bloom. Come out and enjoy ‘Your place in the Leo Edmiston-Cyr Woods’! See you out there! Richard Fessenden Robert Frank, Jr. Sean Hutchinson Keith Kanoti Norris Lovett Walter Musson Executive Director Sherry Davis 262 Government Rd Route 178 3 Museum Background In the mid-1950's a group of enthusiastic volunteers, mostly associated with the lumbering industry, proposed establishing a museum to preserve and portray the history of the logging and lumbering industry in Maine. As an "outdoor museum", this proposal would create a unique and innovative way to educate people of all ages about Maine's forest heritage. After reviewing several local sites the group decided to pursue acreage within the Penobscot Experimental Forest. During the late 1960's two hundred and four acres of the Experimental Forest were deeded to the MFLM by the following companies: Scott Paper Company, Great Northern Paper Company, International Paper Company, St. Regis Paper Company, Diamond International Corporation, Boise Cascade Paper Group, Dead River Company, Prentiss and Carlisle Company, J.W. Sewall Company, J.M. Huber Corporation, 7 Islands Land Company, J.D. Irving Limited. Shortly thereafter other lands were donated by Peirce Webber, Edmund Nolette, H. C. Haynes, and Beverly Spencer. MFLM now owns more than 450 acres. All of this land allows for developing a lumbering settlement portraying life around mills, a blacksmith shop, homes, a trappers' camp, a garden, and acres of forests. The first area built focused on life in the late 1700's and early 1800's centering on the water-powered sawmill. A recent area of development focuses on 1900's mills and equipment featuring the Lombard log hauler, rotary sawmill, clapboard mill, shingle mill et al. 4 Introduction to Leonard’s Mills The Maine Forest and Logging Museum’s Living History site is called Leonard’s Mills, after Oliver Leonard, one of the earliest landowners in what is now the Town of Bradley, Maine. To help you get a feel for the time period in which Oliver Leonard lived, here is a glimpse at this region during the late 1700s: 1. Not long before this period, in 1763, the struggle between England and France for control of northeastern North America ended, breaking up the French-Indian alliance. 2. The American Revolution ended in 1783. 3. In 1796, Massachusetts reached an agreement with the Indians to purchase lands along the Penobscot River, including Township No. 4 – Old Indian Purchase (now Bradley). 4. The Northern Boundary of what is now the State of Maine was not yet determined. 5. People migrated to this part of Maine from all 13 states, as well as from Europe and Canada, some received grants of land and some just squatted. 6. Park Holland of Bangor was commissioned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to head off trouble by establishing lot boundaries as far as the frontier just north of Bradley. 7. On Thursday, September 7, 1797, Park Holland ran a survey line from Nichols Rock at the head of tide on the east side of the Penobscot River east to “land flooded by Leonard’s Mills on Nichols Stream“, officially establishing a lot, which actually may have been settled as a mill as early as 1787. 8. Oliver Leonard was from Norton, Massachusetts (born in 1764). He graduated from Brown University in 1787, and set his sights on practicing law and speculating in lumber in the new and growing Penobscot country. After his death in 1828 (he was buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Bangor), Leonard’s Mills or a similar mill on or near the same site operated by the Blackman family through the late 1800s, and Nichols Stream was renamed Blackman Stream. 5 Alvin Lombard’s Steam Log Hauler Restoration of our Lombard steam log hauler began in 1968 when it was recovered from its longtime resting place in T 9 R 15 in northern Maine. It stayed on display at Packard’s Camps near Sebec Lake until the Maine Forest and Logging Museum purchased it in 1984. After a few years at the University of Maine and a few more years in storage, it was moved to Leonard’s Mills in 1989. Lombard log haulers were a Maine invention, manufactured in Waterville. Logging had been a Maine industry for well over a hundred years. There was a need for a machine that could haul larger loads of wood for longer distances than horses could haul. Conventional wheeled machines were almost useless in winter conditions. In 1900 Alvin Lombard took up the challenge and devised his log hauler. Taking advantage of existing technology, he built a 19-ton logging locomotive that could pull a sled train of several hundred tons. The innovation was that it traveled on an endless track chain that laid its own track. Lombard wasn’t the only one trying to develop a crawler track, but he is credited by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers as being the inventor of the first successful crawler tread that with variations is still being used today. In the next fifteen years a number of machines were built at a cost of about $5,000, a lot of money in the early 1900’s. Lombards were a powerful and successful machine with several continuing to operate well into the 1920’s and a few into the mid 1930’s. The last Lombard Log hauler to be built was number 83, but only five machines remain intact. At the factory these huge machines were loaded onto a railroad car, transported to the North woods, worked hard, then abandoned when and where they wore out or when cutting ceased. The task of restoring such a machine has been a daunting one with 100-year old technology, no replacement parts, limited financial resources, and a labor force of volunteers. Nearly every part has been repaired, restored, or rebuilt with the assistance of many volunteers, companies, and the University of Maine Mechanical Engineering Technology department. Replacement of the steam boiler was a major hurdle. After some serious fund raising, our new ASME Boiler Board certified boiler arrived at Leonard’s Mills in 2009. Volunteers and UM Mechanical Engineering Technology students completed restoration in 2014 and our Lombard steam log hauler is now running again. 6 7 417 Main St. Bangor, ME 04401 (207) 947 -3363 Northwoods Management LLC 115 Franklin Street Suite 2B Bangor, Maine 04401 Tel. 207-262-5552 Fax. 207-262-5554 8 Shingling water- powered sawmill roof Blacksmith shop Living History days Lombard steam log haulers in Machinery Hall 9 10 Leonard’s Mills Namesake: Oliver Leonard The Maine Forest and Logging Museum’s living history site is called Leonard’s Mills after Oliver Leonard one of the early landowners in what is now the Town of Bradley, Maine.